


hair smell

by duskglow



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aobajousai, Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, M/M, and iwaoi are well on their way to crashing and burning into something resembling a relationship, hanamaki dyes his hair and buys hairclips, matsukawa is accused of being a delinquent, seijoh third years (but they're second years in this)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26447653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duskglow/pseuds/duskglow
Summary: “Actually,” Takahiro starts, uncharacteristically serious. “You… Your hair smells nice.”“My hair?” Issei blinks.Takahiro nods. “Yeah.” He reaches a hand up, but doesn’t run his fingers through the curls—instead, he pushes them in at his scalp and scratches. He’s clearly very careful not to ruin the frizzy tangles on Issei’s head that are only achievable by means of product, air drying, and then sleeping-but-not-really on rough cotton pillowcases. The gesture is personal; it worms its way into Issei’s heart and takes root there, squeezing tight, pulsing in time with each of his heartbeats.“I don’t know what it is,” Takahiro confesses. His face is still serious, but the line of his brow is definitely easing. “Your product? Conditioner?”Issei shrugs. He didn’t even know about his hair smell until just now.“But, anyway,” Takahiro continues, and he maintains steady eye contact, although his voice is suddenly small. “Sometimes I’ll smell it on someone else, and it makes me think of you.”“Oh,” Issei says.
Relationships: Hanamaki Takahiro/Matsukawa Issei
Comments: 33
Kudos: 288





	hair smell

“Makki’s late,” Oikawa notes, chin propped up in his hands. His eyes gleam in that all-knowing way of his—it’s the kind of look that typically pisses Iwaizumi off, causes him to lose his temper and yell for no reason.

Issei, however, is different. He hums and scribbles down a half-assed answer to the English homework that he forgot to do last night. The sentences are just all nonsense, but at this point he’s going for the completion grade. Who even gives a shit about quality, anymore? He doesn’t have the energy to care about dumb busywork like this. “He’s always late.”

“This is later than late, though,” Oikawa responds, arched eyebrow ticking upward. He picks at a loose thread on his sweater vest with well-manicured fingers. Issei subtly checks out his own; he still has black nail polish from when his younger sister had wanted to practice on somebody other than herself. It’s pretty ugly, if he’s being honest, all chipped and uneven. He considers possibly maintaining the same perfect, even nails as Oikawa, but balks at the idea of actually having to establish a proper nail care routine when he can barely remember to wash his own face some days.

“Sure,” Issei says belatedly, waving Oikawa’s answer away. “He’ll be here, though.”

“What makes you say that?” His eyes narrow in thinly-veiled curiosity.

Issei finishes writing the complete gibberish that is characteristic of his last-minute homework assignments and looks up again. “He would’ve texted if he was gonna miss. Don’t you need to go back to your smart people class before the bell rings, anyway?”

Oikawa gives him a side-eye but gets up anyway. “You should text him,” Oikawa implores, like he knows more about Issei’s best friend than Issei himself does.

Issei frowns. “I was going to,” he states, unsure of what Oikawa is trying to imply, and a little defensive of the ways in which he handles the (sometimes very fine) lines that define his and Takahiro’s friendship-relationship… _thing._

Oikawa sweeps out of the room with as much flair and panache as expected, grinning at girls here and there and greeting Issei’s teacher with a wink and a wave.

Issei’s frown deepens. Half-assed homework forgotten, he whips out his phone and hastily types out _WYA?_ in a new message meant for Takahiro.

Takahiro doesn’t respond right away like he normally does, and Issei’s stomach knots up; he remains absent throughout their shared first period, and Issei’s phone remains silent.

* * *

It’s lunch time when the metaphorical shit hits the also-metaphorical fan. Iwaizumi is off, as per usual, kicking around a football with a couple of the other club members in the courtyard. Oikawa is having what is probably the world’s most intense conversation with the world’s most intense high school first-year, a scrawny kid named Yahaba who had seemingly materialized out of nowhere in the second-year’s wing and hassled Oikawa for pointers on jump-serves until Oikawa eventually gave in. He’s got eyes like Oikawa’s, too—the kind that glint when he looks at you, way too intimidating for his relatively unimpressive stature. 

Issei maintains a safe distance from all of that. He’s glad there’s no potential new middle blockers this year, because he most definitely could not do whatever the hell it is Oikawa is doing to mentor this kid. Should Oikawa even be around kids? Probably not, Issei thinks, and sends the two of them one last wayward glance before continuing with his lunch.

Issei pushes around the rice in his bento, not quite feeling his appetite today, and reflects on the current state of his life. He’s kinda really fucking tired because his thoughts had kept him up into the early hours of the night, he has a D in English (go figure), he’s finally made first string on the team but God, at what cost? All that effort… He sighs, slumps further into his seat, and lets his chopsticks clatter into the box. Maybe he should quit. Maybe he should drop out of school. He will if Takahiro doesn’t show up today, he decides.

Because, of course, the higher powers that are in charge of orchestrating Issei’s miserable little life obviously hate his guts, and Takahiro _still isn’t here._ Issei’s day was already painstakingly melancholic and mundane to begin with, but Takahiro’s absence makes him ache something fierce. By now his best friend would come sweeping into the classroom with stories to distract Issei from his downward spiral into—whatever the hell it is he is feeling. Just general shittiness, he supposes. And he’d offer Issei some of his own food, even though he typically has a huge appetite, and Issei will take it, even though he’s practically never hungry. That’s just how they work.

Takahiro never misses class like this, and if he were to do so, he definitely would have texted Issei about it.

Issei takes out his phone again with the intention of sending another message to Takahiro. Only, he never quite gets there, startled out of his thoughts by a couple of loud exclamations from the front of the classroom. Issei only deigns to look up when Oikawa gasps out loud, because even though Oikawa is probably the most dramatic person that Issei has ever had the misfortune of meeting and also somehow befriending, he is never that _loud_ about it. When Issei catches sight of what is apparently startling everyone and their mother, he can’t help but feel his own jaw drop in surprise, too.

Takahiro has finally shown up, and he’s standing right in front of Issei’s desk.

Not only has Takahiro finally appeared, the fucker, but to the surprise of absolutely everybody— _including Issei,_ because _what the hell_ _—_ his hair is _bright pink_ , and choppy, as if he dipped it haphazardly in a tub of semi-permanent Manic Panic and then took patterned kiddie scissors to his relatively long bangs. He has uneven _microbangs_ now, zigzagging across the skin of his forehead. Issei is gaping. He can’t turn away. His eyes are glued to Takahiro’s hair.

“You’re gonna catch flies,” Takahiro informs him bluntly, reaching over and patting at Issei’s face before stealing another chair and shoving it in front of the desk Issei is currently occupying.

“Um,” Issei says, ever articulate. He clamps his mouth shut. Takahiro sits down and takes his bento out of his bag.

“Your hair,” Oikawa pipes up. Issei’s gaze darts to the next seat over to see him staring, eyes bulging, jaw dropped. “It’s—Makki, what did you _do_?”

“Oh, you know,” Takahiro says with some kind of vague hand gesture, clearly deciding not to elaborate further. He cracks open the lid of his bento and begins to eat.

“Um,” Issei says again. Takahiro is so _pink_ _—_ so much brighter than it was yesterday, when his hair had been light reddish-brown, about the same hue as Yahaba’s (Speaking of said first-year, Yahaba is currently gaping at his upperclassman like he has developed a second head).

Takahiro’s brows knit together when his eyes flick up again. “Earth to Issei—are you actually okay? Seen a ghost?”

Issei is still staring. He knows this. He cannot stop himself from doing so. “Um. No? I don’t think so. What—um, _what_? You—you know?”

“Wow,” Takahiro remarks, looking at Issei like he’s a raging idiot. “Got you this tongue-tied with just a little hair dye and a trim, huh?”

Before Issei can even attempt to come up with an acceptable response to this, Oikawa snorts, dropping his shock at the entire situation in favor of adopting a cool and casual acceptance. He evidently moves through the five stages of surprise as quickly as he does all other things in life, which is to say, as fast as humanly possible. Issei is quite envious, seeing as he is still stuck on Stage 1: _Staring Like A Fucking Fool_. 

“You look like a delinquent,” Oikawa tells Takahiro without a hint of irony. “Especially next to him.” He points at Issei, as if Issei is some sort of poster child for high school troublemakers across the globe. “You’re a delinquent couple.”

“Issei doesn’t look like a delinquent, he’s a fucking marshmallow,” Takahiro argues, at the same time Issei says, “We’re not a couple..?” And his voice lilts at the end because he’s not really certain, himself, but he doesn’t like the way Oikawa has been reading him like a book lately, and felt the need to protest.

“Sure,” Oikawa answers both of them simultaneously, voice dripping in what can only be sarcasm. He stands up and brushes off nonexistent crumbs from his pants. “I’m gonna go get Iwa-chan, because he _definitely_ needs to see this.”

With that, he departs, Yahaba following hot on his trail, but not without one last glance at Takahiro’s glaringly pink head. 

Issei says nothing after this exchange. His mouth is dry. He chances a look around. There’s a group of girls sitting in the corner and gossipping behind their hands, eyes straying to Takahiro every few moments. A couple of guys from the front of the classroom are just blatantly staring. If Takahiro feels their eyes on his back, he pays them no mind while he chews on his onigiri and scribbles something down into his notebook. (Issei takes a peak. It’s his English homework, the same assignment Issei had been doing that very morning.)

So, the thing is: hair dye of any kind is expressly forbidden at Aoba Johsai, since it’s a private school—the conservative kind with a strict dress-code policy and hall monitors that will absolutely snitch if they catch even a glimpse of a wayward piercing or strand of unnaturally dyed hair. Issei genuinely has not seen any other students walking to halls of their high school with anything other than their natural hair color.

Everybody else is very clearly aware of this. And everybody is staring, looking as if they’re two seconds away from reporting Takahiro to the closest instructor.

“You’re gonna get called into the front office,” Issei states dryly. He’s still processing the whole change in Takahiro’s look, to be honest. His bangs don’t cover his whole forehead, now, Issei can see his eyes a lot better. They’re kinda gray, definitely lighter than Issei had thought they’d been.

“I don’t care,” Takahiro says. “You know I don’t care about that stuff.”

Which is true, and Issei does know this, thanks to several shared experiences in which the two of them may or may not have broken several mandated Aoba Johsai rules, including (but not limited to) the vandalization of random pieces of school property. It had been a harmless stunt, and in Issei’s opinion had not at all warranted the two week suspension from club sports that they’d been given as punishment. But as a result of this event, and a few more following in which they’d never actually been caught, Issei is well aware that his best friend does not give two shits about any school rules—least of all, stupid rules about superficial stuff like hair dye.

Issei hums. He looks at Takahiro’s hair again, the way it’s transformed his entire face, defining the lines of his cheekbones and jaw. Oh, God, does he have freckles on his newly-exposed forehead? His cheeks are pink; he has pink undertones in his skin. He’s very pink all over.

“I think it looks good,” Issei says. His throat feels sticky.

Takahiro’s eyes trail up from his lunch to Issei’s face. They’re so bright now, and the contact between the two of them feels white hot, electric. Issei’s throat sticks even more. He coughs to try to clear it. This, of course, does nothing.

“Thanks,” Takahiro says, voice deep and syrupy. He reaches up and pulls at a strand of hair a bit longer than the rest. The microbangs are really, really uneven. “I think I feel like myself, maybe. I don’t know.”

Issei wonders at that, for a moment. “‘S a good look on you,” he says, voice quiet.

Takahiro raises a brow and squints at him. “Why are you sweet talking me out of the blue?”

“I’m not sweet talking anybody,” Issei protests, face kinda burning, eyes averted. “Am I not allowed to compliment you?”

“Nope,” Takahiro answers. “It’s suspicious. What are you planning? You’re planning _something_ , right?”

“I’m not planning anything, Hiro.”

“Hm,” Takahiro says. He leans forward. “Then you should compliment me more, I guess.”

“Yeah?” Oh, God, Issei’s heart is racing, suddenly. He feels like he might die.

Takahiro’s closer now. He definitely has smatterings of freckles on the apples of his cheeks and the tip of his nose. He tilts his head and smiles, the gesture incredibly endearing, choppy hair shifting to the side. “Yeah.”

“You two look like delinquents,” Iwaizumi’s gruff voice catches both of them off guard as he slides into the seat at the desk next to Issei’s. The bubble that had been unintentionally growing between Issei and Takahiro is now effectively broken, and the sounds of the rest of the room rushing back in. Both lean back. The lost proximity is glaring, suddenly, and Issei feels the absence in his chest, a gap where there shouldn’t be one, something a bit like what he was feeling earlier in the day when Takahiro still hadn’t shown up. Iwaizumi looks both of them up and down and says, “All you need are piercings and tattoos.”

Issei frowns, wondering why the hell his friends are convinced that Issei is some sort of delinquent all of a sudden. He’s only ever gotten one suspension, and a couple of detentions. And his appearance isn’t _that_ wild, what the hell.

Oikawa appears and sits down as well. “Don’t encourage them, Iwa-chan! We’d have to find new friends, ones who don’t look like they’re one step away from getting suspended from all club activities for vandalizing the school. Oh, wait—they already did that.” 

Takahiro and Issei sigh in unison, because Oikawa is the world’s biggest goody-two shoes and probably can’t even imagine getting suspended from volleyball for even one singular practice, and if he was he’d show up to the gym anyway, pretending like nothing had happened, and have to be dragged out and locked inside his house by an unnecessarily aggravated Iwaizumi.

Presently, Iwaizumi scowls and swipes at him from across the table for no reason. Oikawa dodges, a half-mischievous, half-smug look plastered across his face.

Issei ignores them as they begin to bicker and squabble. He sneaks glances at Takahiro for the rest of their lunch period, and then some.

* * *

“What’s in your hair?” Iwaizumi questions, blunt as ever. His tone isn’t exactly unkind, just curious in that straightforward way of his.

They’re all on the roof, today, chill in the late spring air finally giving way to a nice balmy breeze. It rustles their clothing, shifts the pink hair on Takahiro’s head. It looks even brighter in the soft early-afternoon sunlight, even though it’s been a week since he first dyed it and time has made it fade a bit. Issei kind of stares, and when Takahiro catches his eye, he turns away quickly, cheeks burning, only to look back a couple of moments later.

“Hair clips,” Takahiro answers. He stuffs his face, then speaks with a mouth full of food. “I cut my bangs pretty bad, so I need to keep the longer strands out of my face.”

There’s a couple of barrettes shoved into the hair at the sides. They do, indeed, hold back longer pieces of hair, ones Takahiro must’ve missed while cutting it. The clips are all as pink as his hair. One of them has a heart stuck on it, bright and gaudy.

“Why not just cut them to be shorter?” Oikawa asks, looking like he honestly does not understand Takahiro’s thought process regarding the the styling of his own head of hair. Oikawa could probably never imagine cutting his hair like Takahiro presumably did above his own bathroom sink last week. Oikawa’s hair is, after all, the majority of his external appeal. But he is eyeing the clips with a greedy glint in his eye and it makes Issei want to laugh.

“‘Cause I like the clips,” Takahiro answers evenly through a mouthful of food. He swallows.

Issei likes them, too. “They’re cute,” he remarks, ignoring the way that Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s gazes snap to him in surprise at the casual admission.

“Thanks,” Takahiro says, and his cheeks are pink now, too.

It may very well be Issei’s new favorite color.

* * *

“Hey,” Takahiro says in their fifth period class one day, which happens to be English lang. Or maybe it’s lit? Issei isn’t really all that sure. They’re supposed to be doing readings—Takahiro is clearly not doing this, instead doodling crudely in the margins of his notes. Another zero in the gradebook; he doesn’t care, and neither does Issei, who had just been startled out of his mid-class nap by Takahiro’s low voice. “We should skip practice today.”

He’s got clips in his hair again, today. This time they’re yellow, little stars tucked against his temples. Issei is fairly certain he’d seen Takahiro slipping some of the same variety to Oikawa in a very discreet manner, which was deemed completely unnecessary by both Issei and Iwaizumi himself, because they all know Oikawa’s is going to put them in his hair as soon as he gets home from practice and take artful mirror selfies and then proceedingly upload those selfies to his Instagram account that has no less than ten thousand followers, and all of his fangirls and guys are going to comment dumb shit like _You look amazing, Oikawa-san!!!!! You’re so handsome!! So beautiful!!!_ with an inordinate amount of heart emojis attached.

(In addition to this already painfully ridiculous scenario, Iwaizumi is gonna pretend like he isn’t saving all of the snapchat selfies Oikawa sends with filters that give him freckles like stars, and when Oikawa asks why he screenshotted them the following day, he’ll say something dumb like _b_ _ecause you looked stupid ugly_ and Oikawa will get pouty and Iwaizumi will get flustered, and they’ll both keep doing that weird courtship dance they’ve got going on that can only end in a disastrous, cataclysmic get-together; because, after all, it is Iwaizumi and Oikawa, who have never been anything less than major disasters when it comes to one another.)

But anyways, Takahiro’s got star clips in his hair. He’s very pink all over; Issei is ninety-nine percent sure he’s painted his nails baby pink, too, but he hasn’t been able to steal a proper glance. He’s asking Issei to skip afternoon practice with him.

Issei raises a brow. “Why’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Takahiro answers with a shrug. He’s drawing lines, one after another, on the sheet of paper that still remains devoid of any actual assigned writing. Issei’s eyes trace the hatching. “I just feel like it.”

Issei and Takahiro may have just recently been moved onto their team’s first string of players, but they’ve got more than enough substitutes to fill their shoes. Missing one practice really won’t impact all that much in the grand scheme of things. Issei mulls it over, or at least pretends to, because really, he’s already made up his mind, hasn’t he?

“Sure,” he says. “What are we gonna do?”

Takahiro shrugs again. “Whatever you want. I was thinking arcade.”

They have one period left in the day, which they decidedly skip, creeping out of the halls and off campus during the five minute rush in between classes. Takahiro leads the way to the old rundown arcade a couple of streets down, the interior almost completely empty due to the fact that all other people under the age of eighteen in this area are still actually at school. The guy behind the counter eyes them oddly like he suspects as much, but business is business so he lets them shove their bags behind the counter and purchase rusty arcade coins with spare change dug out of deep pockets. 

Takahiro immediately moves to the rhythm games, because he is nothing if not predictable in his gaming habits, and Issei follows because he always does. He’s never been all that great at this stuff, so while Takahiro ends up on an uninterrupted winning streak during the most difficult song in the game’s selection and moves his hands across the screen with seemingly unprecedented levels of coordination and speed, Issei picks the easiest song on his own console and lightly taps between second-long intervals. When Takahiro finishes early and sees the excruciatingly slow pace at which Issei is tapping the screen, he laughs, loudly, kinda like Issei is an idiot, but also that he _likes_ that Issei is an idiot. _Score one for Issei._

Less than an hour later, they’re all out of coins. They don’t end up with enough tickets to really get anything good from the wall of prizes, but Takahiro confesses that he’s keeping a stash of hundreds of arcade tickets at home because he wants one of the giant stuffed red pandas that they keep suspended above the counter, sheer in its size and glaringly bright in all of its crimson and white glory. It looks soft. It’s worth two thousand tickets. Issei feels the pressing need to spend all of his money trying to win two thousand tickets so that he can buy the damn thing for Takahiro.

He shoves this feeling down—not away, though, because he’s just saving it for later—and says, “That’s cheating. You have to win all of the tickets in one day, fake gamer.”

Takahiro reaches over and shoves at his face, but he’s smiling, again. _Score two for Issei._ Issei slides him the tickets that he won, because it’s not like he’s gonna buy anything with them, anyway. Takahiro smiles sweetly, eyes lit up in appreciation. 

The remainder of the afternoon passes slowly, honeyed hours crawling by. They leave the arcade and walk a couple of blocks over to a conbini that Issei knows is halfway between campus and Takahiro’s house; other kids in Seijoh uniforms are milling the streets now, too, clearly on their way back home from school or shorter club meetings. Practice would be in full swing at this moment. Issei absolutely does not regret skipping.

They eat convenience store snacks bought with a couple of spare coins that Issei had managed to dig out of the very bottom of his backpack, lost in the mess of crumpled overdue assignments and loose paper clips. And then they get to Takahiro’s house, which is huge and vacant because Takahiro’s parents are not only absolutely loaded but also chronic workaholics. Takahiro doesn’t really like talking about them, so Issei doesn’t ask, and he tries not to look too long at the framed pictures of a younger and tamer Takahiro that line the walls, expressionless parents standing at his side, prim and proper.

Takahiro manages to convince him to stay for a while, and then he proceedingly whips Issei’s ass at Smash, as Princess fucking Peach no less. Issei can't help but think that it's fitting, though, because Takahiro is practically as pink as her at this point, and when he says as much Takahiro looks torn between being pleased and wanting to kick Issei’s ass.

Later, after many rounds of various games in which Issei continuously fails to come out on top, Takahiro drags Issei up to his room and asks, “You wanna sleep over?” It doesn’t really sound like he’s asking, though. He levels an indecipherable look at Issei and says, “Nobody’s gonna be home tonight except us.”

“You’re telling me we could’ve thrown a big blowout party in your huge house tonight and instead we sat on the couch and played _Smash_ for three hours? What a wasted opportunity.”

“Idiot,” Takahiro huffs. “I wanted to spend time with _you_.”

Issei does not know what to say to that, exactly, and his palms are sweaty all of a sudden, so he just simply nods and throws his backpack onto the floor. “I can stay. I didn’t bring any other clothes, though.” He looks down at his rumpled and untucked school uniform.

“You can wear mine,” Takahiro offers, slinging a grin at Issei. And this would all be well and good, really, because while Issei is the taller and broader of the two, Takahiro isn’t all that small either, still all broad-shouldered and long-legged like any other average high school volleyball player.

Except.

Except Takahiro flings clothes at Issei, and he subsequently puts them on and discovers that apparently his best friend only gets his t-shirts in the smallest, tightest size possible for his physique, which means it’s as small and as tight as possible on Issei, too—comically so, even. While the sweatpants are completely passable, the shirt is virtually a crop top.

And, because this is Hanamaki Takahiro, who somehow manages to always be at least a little bit unpredictable, the shirt that he gives Issei is hot pink. And it has a fucking _unicorn_ on it.

“Why,” Issei asks, and decides to leave it at that.

Takahiro, who is lounging on his bed in soft-looking, _normal_ clothes, glances up from his phone and grins. “‘S a good look on you,” he states, because he’s simultaneously the most amazing person and yet also the biggest asshole that Issei knows. Of course he'd pull something like this.

Issei decides that it isn’t worth the effort to fight with him, instead opting to plop down on the floor next to the bed and lean up against the side. “You know that this is the exact opposite of my aesthetic,” Issei says. He pulls at the hem, trying to stretch it down over his stomach. Maybe he can hike the sweatpants up. High-waisted pants are making a comeback, right?

“What, you mean wannabe delinquent goth?” Takahiro responds, checking his phone.

“Excuse you, I’m a joth. A goth jock. Please get it right next time. And I'm _not_ a fucking delinquent.”

Takahiro snorts. Then his eyes flick to his phone as it vibrates. He whistles. “I have eighteen unopened snapchats from Oikawa. Here, smile,” and before Issei knows it Takahiro is snapping a picture of him, pink unicorn crop top and all, and sending it to Oikawa.

“Hiro,” Issei groans. “What the hell, what if he saves that?”

“It’s a snapchat, so he wouldn’t. It would violate our bro code, and the consequences would be dire—oh, nevermind, he just screenshotted it. Oh, well.”

“I despise you,” Issei says, not sounding at all like he means it.

Takahiro shoots him a look that absolutely calls him out on his bullshit. Which is fair, because yes, Issei was lying. He does that a lot, when it comes to things regarding Takahiro.

“I am going to sleep,” Issei proclaims.

Takahiro squints up at him. “It’s eight o’clock. And you never sleep,” he points out.

“Mind your own business.” In one swipe, Issei steals all of the blankets off of Takahiro’s bed, wraps them around himself, and drops to the floor.

“Hey! What the hell, don’t burrito-blanket yourself in my sheets!”

“If you got me the spare futon instead of being a lazy fuck, I wouldn’t have to,” Issei tells him stubbornly. 

“No spare futon,” Takahiro informs him grimly, before dropping back and splaying dramatically across his mattress. “The hotel only gave us one bed, Issei, guess we have to share it and pretend to ignore the homoerotic tension we’ve got going on here and then wake up spooning in the morning. Would you be my little spoon? I think you would.”

“Stop making Oikawa tell you the plots to Star Trek fanfictions. They’re rotting your brain.” But Issei gets up from the floor anyway and collapses onto the bed, on top of Takahiro. His skin is warm; they’re shrouded by the blankets which smell distinctly like Takahiro. This, of course, means they smell sickeningly sweet like cotton candy and whatever fruity body spray he must be currently working his way through. Takahiro wheezes from the sudden weight on his diaphragm, and shifts around in order to get comfier.

“You smell good,” Issei blurts. He doesn’t know what the fuck happened to his verbal filter, but it sure is gone. 

Takahiro hums. “Like what?”

“Like candy.”

“Oh, yeah?” Takahiro shifts some more, twists his fingers into the hem of Issei’s dumb rainbow unicorn croptop. “You know what you smell like?”

Curiosity piqued, Issei asks, “What?”

“Sweat.”

Issei doesn’t know what he expected. “Thanks,” he says dryly. “I’ll have you know that this _eau de parfum_ is all the rage in Europe, right now.”

Takahiro laughs, eyes scrunching up. _Score three for Issei_. Maybe it’s a little bit odd to be keeping a running tally of how many times he can make Takahiro laugh and smile in a day. Maybe it’s just the right brand of odd for Issei and Takahiro, though.

There’s a moment of silence. Issei takes stock of the various things that he is currently feeling; Takahiro’s bare legs tangled with his own, the air beneath the sheets slowly beginning to heat up; each puff of breath from Takahiro’s mouth against Issei’s own face (wow, they’re close), and it’s minty because Takahiro insists on chewing gum all the damn time, even in school. He is way more of a delinquent than Issei, no matter what Oikawa and Iwaizumi may think.

“Actually,” Takahiro starts, uncharacteristically serious. “You… Your hair smells nice.”

“My hair?” Issei blinks.

Takahiro nods. “Yeah.” He reaches a hand up, but doesn’t run his fingers through the curls—instead, he pushes them in at his scalp and scratches. He’s clearly very careful not to ruin the frizzy tangles on Issei’s head that are only achievable by means of product, air drying, and then sleeping-but-not-really on rough cotton pillowcases. The gesture is personal; it worms its way into Issei’s heart and takes root there, squeezing tight, pulsing in time with each of his heartbeats.

“I don’t know what it is,” Takahiro confesses. His face is still serious, but the line of his brow is definitely easing. “Your product? Conditioner?”

Issei shrugs. He didn’t even know about his hair smell until just now.

“But, anyway,” Takahiro continues, and he maintains steady eye contact, although his voice is suddenly small. “Sometimes I’ll smell it on someone else, and it makes me think of you.”

“Oh,” Issei says. He realizes, suddenly and quite belatedly, that he’s in way over his head. That this is dangerous, this dance he’s performing with Takahiro, and that he hadn’t quite realized it before. But he doesn’t think it’s dangerous in a bad way. It’s more enthralling, thrilling, like the burst of adrenaline one might get right before a cliff dive or a steep drop on a rollercoaster. He moves his hand up and runs the tips of his fingers through uneven pink microbangs and says, without thinking, (which has certainly become a trend over these past couple weeks), “Can I kiss you?”

“Yes,” Takahiro breathes, almost immediately, and then their lips are touching. Issei breathes, sharply, then presses down and moves; his hands slide all over Takahiro’s skin, his face, his hair once again. Takahiro’s slide down his shoulders, side, and waist. The air between them is hot, and the blankets are still thrown haphazardly over both of their bodies. Issei’s nose presses into Takahiro’s cheek. Takahiro’s legs are still wedged between Issei’s.

Takahiro deepens the kiss and hums into Issei's mouth, which makes him shiver.

He pulls back, says, completely serious, “I can’t believe this. Our first kiss, and I’m wearing a hot pink unicorn crop top.”

“Shut up and kiss me,” Takahiro commands.

Issei obliges.

* * *

Later that night, Takahiro leans up when he thinks Issei’s asleep and sniffs at the crown of his head.

“You’re such a fuckin’ weirdo,” Issei informs him, and Takahiro startles, face twisting with a twinge of embarrassment as he leans back.

“Shut up, I’m allowed to,” Takahiro says, defensive. “We’re dating.”

“We are?” Issei teases, trying to maintain a cool exterior, all the while internally freaking the hell out. _Dating_. “I don’t recall you asking me out.”

Takahiro rolls his eyes. “We’re dating,” he repeats, almost aggressively assertive.

“I reject your confession,” Issei tells him haughtily. “Nowhere near enough of a romantic vibe. Where is the bouquet of flowers? The box of chocolates? The serenade with a guitar—no, _ukulele_? The cheesy confession letter talking about how beautiful my eyes are?”

“Your eyes are very beautiful,” Takahiro tells him solemnly. “I especially love the ginormous fucking bags under them.”

Issei gasps, mock offended. “How _dare_ you, Hiro. I’ll have you know, these bags are designer.”

Takahiro snorts. “You’re a mess,” he says.

“So are you,” Issei shoots back. “You skipped half a day of class to dye your hair pink and cut off your bangs. You have breakdown microbangs, Hiro.”

“Oh my God,” Takahiro says, scrubbing a face over his face.“I do. I do have breakdown microbangs. We’re so _messy,_ Issei. Our collective messiness is literally overwhelming. How do Iwaizumi and Oikawa deal?”

“To be fair, I’m pretty sure they’re too caught up in their own weird-romance thing they've got going on to even notice ours.”

Takahiro hums in agreement. “Wanna bet they’ll only confess before they go away to different universities?”

“Heard Iwaizumi is planning to study abroad,” Issei inputs. “Which would make their romance long-distance, and therefore ten times angstier. I think he’ll probably try to say something before then. He’s pretty impulsive.”

“Not when it comes to Oikawa,” Takahiro points out.

Issei considers that. “True. Okay, I say they’ll get together by the beginning of next year.”

“I think they’ll say something right before graduation.”

“Wanna bet on it?”

“What are we betting?”

“Well,” Issei frowns. “I am a broke, jobless high school student with no money to my name. So not money.”

“Kisses, then,” Takahiro says, as if this is the next logical step from actual currency.

“That makes no sense.”

Takahiro huffs. “I just want you to kiss me, asshole.”

“Could’ve just asked,” Issei rolls his eyes. “But it doesn’t matter because I’m not kissing you again until you ask me out.”

Takahiro glares at him, then reaches over and pinches his cheek. “Matsukawa Issei, go out with me, or else.”

Issei brings a hand up to his chin and furrows his brow, pretending to actually think about it. “No.”

“Okay, then get out of my bed,” and Takahiro shifts away against the wall, and Issei is so _cold_ , suddenly.

“No, wait, babe, come back.” It’s too damn cold for this, really, and also Issei had actually been pretty close to falling asleep, which is odd, because sleep never comes this easy. He wonders if it’s because of Takahiro’s body heat or the mental exhaustion of having to establish this relationship as an actual relationship or just the fact that Issei’s arms aren’t empty, this time around. “I meant yes, of course I’ll date you, my soulmate, my one and only, the apple of my eye—”

Takahiro snorts. “You called me _babe_. We’re definitely dating, dude.”

“What the hell, don’t call me dude when I just called you babe.”

“But you’re my favorite, dude. I love you, bro,” Takahiro pouts. 

Issei chokes on a laugh. “Fine, fine, goodnight, boyfriend whom I love and adore. Now come back here and cuddle with me, you _bitch_.”

Takahiro huffs but presses soft lips to Issei’s cheek and melts into the line of his body. Issei actually sleeps that night, arms curled around the width of Takahiro’s torso, and when he wakes up, he doesn’t feel nearly as miserable or melancholic as he might have on literally any other normal day.

Score _infinity_ for Issei.

* * *

Oikawa stares at him. “You’re smiling,” he says, scandalized. There’s a star clip pinning back Oikawa’s bangs today, because he has apparently thrown caution to the wind, yesterday’s discretion be damned.

Issei hums. He hastily fills out his math worksheet due first period. He’s not worried—he’ll get it done in time, no doubt. Math is easy, and he’s feeling good. His mind is relatively clear, and his shoulders feel kinda light, like a weight has been lifted off of them recently. Or something like that.

“Why are you smiling?” Oikawa says. He turns to Iwaizumi. “Iwa-chan, why is he smiling?”

Iwaizumi—who is undoubtedly still reeling from all of the buried feelings of yearning that had been dredged up yesterday evening when Oikawa sent their snapchat groupchat no less than _thirty-two_ filtered selfies—just flushes oddly and shrugs. His eyes are locked onto Oikawa’s hair, or his hairline, or his exposed (and frankly, kinda big) forehead.

Issei has to feel a bit grateful that he’s not that repressed.

“Why did you and Makki skip practice yesterday?” Oikawa questions further, turning back to Issei. “I’m not captain yet, but when I am you’re not allowed to skip at _all_. Where’s Makki, anyway? Is he having another breakdown and cutting his hair even shorter? Maybe he’s shaving it this time. Mattsun, you have to go stop him! Nobody wants to see Makki bald! His head is probably lumpy!”

Issei looks up. “Oikawa,” he says with a careful, curling smile. Oikawa goes stock still. “You’re one of my best friends, and I love you, but please… Shut the fuck up so I can finish this worksheet.”

Iwaizumi snorts in amusement. Oikawa levels a betrayed look on both of them. “Mattsun is scary when he smiles…” he mutters beneath his breath, eyeing Issei warily and scooting his chair closer to Iwaizumi, who looks kind of weirdly delighted by this development.

“The hell are you two nerds doing in here?” Takahiro’s voice sounds, and they all look up to see him walking leisurely to the back of the class, uniform untucked, bag slung casually over his shoulder. The clips in his hair are blue today, little crescent moons decorating the ends. Issei had picked them out this morning out of Takahiro’s stash of hair accessories; they’re his favorites so far, standing out brightly against the pink of his hair. “Don’t you have your smart people class to go to?”

Iwaizumi frowns. “Oikawa’s the only one in class five. If anything, he’s the only nerd around here.”

Takahiro considers this, then nods obligingly. Oikawa gasps, affronted. “Why do I even hang out with you people?”

“Nobody else can tolerate you,” Iwaizumi inputs, obviously speaking from experience.

“Sick burn, Iwaizumi,” Issei says. He looks up at Takahiro and scans the length of his body, unsubtly checking him out. “Hey, it’s been a while. Haven’t seen you since this morning.”

“Too long,” Takahiro tells him with a grin, pulling up a chair and scooting it as close to Issei as physically possible.

Again, both Iwaizumi and Oikawa are eyeing them oddly. “Did you have a sleepover? A _slumber party_? Without us?” Oikawa questions. “I knew you were together yesterday because Makki sent me a picture of Mattsun wearing a heinous pink unicorn crop top, but did you have a _sleepover_?”

“Who the hell says any of that shit anymore?” Iwaizumi mutters, completely ignoring everything that was said about unicorns and crop tops. “Stop saying sleepover. Just say hanging-out.”

“No,” Oikawa responds petulantly. “It’s a sleepover, Iwa-chan.”

“You and Iwaizumi have sleepovers all the time,” Takahiro points out.

“They’re not sleepovers,” Iwaizumi protests. “We just hang out.”

“Oh, Iwaizumi,” Issei decides that he doesn’t care if he finishes his worksheet or not, instead opting to poke the bear. He lays a gentle hand on Iwaizumi’s broad shoulder. “The list of things you are currently in denial about seemingly grows longer and longer each day.” 

Oikawa squints as if trying to decipher Issei’s words, throwing questioning looks at Issei and Takahiro and then at Iwaizumi, who just sits in his chair looking utterly defeated. It really is unfortunate that Oikawa is perceptive about literally everything except the romantical-type of feelings that his own best friend possesses for him. Issei might end up losing the bet, after all.

Takahiro snickers. “This is why I like you,” he tells Issei.

“You said love last night, though,” Issei replies easily.

“Um,” Iwaizumi says, eyebrows scrunched together. Oikawa is still squinting. For once, it is glorious to see them passing a singular shared braincell back and forth between their abnormally large but empty skulls, both trying too hard to define the admittedly _very_ fine lines that Issei and Takahiro have always had in their friendship-relationship-thing.

And then Issei decides, in this very moment, for no reason at all: fuck the lines. Fuck the boundaries and borders and anything that keeps them from being what they want to be. Hanamaki Takahiro is Issei’s friend, best friend, boyfriend, partner, all wrapped into one stunningly weird and aesthetically-pleasing amalgam, gift-wrapped in a personality meant just for Issei. He cuts his own choppy bangs and loves the color pink because it’s objectively the best color (although Issei will protest that black is the best, obviously) and he wears whatever the hell he wants, heart clips in his hair and the smallest unicorn crop tops to ever grace the face of this earth. He genuinely doesn’t care that Issei is sometimes the world’s most morbid and depressing teenager. He talks to Issei during class because he also doesn’t care about rules and he suggests writing their names all over campus, on desks and lockers and the walls of bathroom stalls because who gives a shit about the sanctity of school property? He drags Issei on spur-of-the-moment kinda-not-really dates during their last period of class and he convinces Issei to skip practice because nothing really matters in the grand scheme of things, anyway.

And maybe it’s a little bit nihilistic, but that’s kind of how they’ve always been. They really do make a good match, Issei thinks, and he leans in and kisses his boyfriend, hard, and feels Takahiro grinning into it, kissing back just as hard, pressure bruising.

Oikawa wails something about how romance is dead because who the hell even kisses at school? Is PDA not explicitly forbidden by Aoba Johsai’s faculty and very dedicated hall monitors? Go on a date and make out in your own rooms, _you heathens,_ and Iwaizumi leans over to push at his best friend’s face and get him to shut the fuck up. All the while, both Takahiro and Issei are pointedly ignoring their friends (and their stilted, backwards romance that they’ll eventually figure out) in favor of kissing the shit out of one another.

All four get sent to the front office just a few moments later—Issei and Takahiro for an indecent and inappropriate public display of affection, and Iwaizumi and Oikawa (the latter looking absolutely devastated about the fact that he actually got into trouble) for causing too loud of a ruckus with their roughhousing. It’s worth it when they manage to scrape by with only a light slap on the wrist, and Takahiro turns to Issei in the hallway by their shoe lockers when they’re supposed to be walking back to first period and says, pink hair glinting in the awful fluorescent lights above, “Let’s skip school today.”

Issei grins. “Okay.”

* * *


End file.
